Chasing Happiness but Discovering Disappointment
Media Provided by NorthWestern Medicine
Every student has heard the infamous lines: Strive for excellence. Achieve more. Do better. Did you give it your all? A recent Gallup poll found that less than half of Americans are “very satisfied” with their own lives. As of February 8th, 2024, Megan Brenan reports that “for the third time in more than two decades, less than half of Americans say they are ‘very satisfied’ with the way things are going in their personal lives”.
In schools across the nation, and especially in pressure-cooker elite New York City schools, there exists a constant expectation to do well, to exceed and strive for better grades, seemingly to curate a resume that exemplifies the great work students have done, but all with the same common goal of trying to better their future. This recurring theme of striving to be better and the constant pressure that perhaps one’s efforts may not be reasonable enough raises a meaningful question: can people ever truly be satisfied?
To learn what Grace Students think about satisfaction, we created a poll asking whether people can ever truly be satisfied, how social media affects their contentment, and what success and happiness mean to them. What would make you satisfied, why or why not?
Surprisingly, there was no clear sentiment or outright perspective among the student body and faculty. Reviewing the results, 50% of participants reported feeling satisfied, while 50% reported not feeling satisfied.
While there was no clear consensus among participants, the wide variety of perspectives offers phenomenal insight into how satisfaction does not look the same for everyone, and that it simply depends on the person.
For instance, in response to the question of whether people can ever truly be satisfied, a professor at Grace High School, Jennifer Tashman, reflected: “Yes, but only if a person keeps their expectations kinda low. As Lynyrd Skynyrd said in their song Simple Man: ‘Oh, take your time, don’t live too fast. Troubles will come and they will pass…Baby, be a simple, be a simple man. Oh, be something you love and understand.”
Another interesting and unique faculty perspective arose from Professor Jacob Root of the Grace High School, who stated: “Yes, because ‘satis’ in Latin means ‘enough,’ and if you realize you already have MORE than enough . . . . you’ll be satisfied.”
Similarly, Elena C. ‘27, a junior at Grace, said that you can be satisfied “if you set reasonable expectations.” According to her, satisfaction will not come for those whose expectations are too high because then “you can only become satisfied if you become a billionaire or a famed celebrity.”
As social media continues to gain greater influence, particularly among teenagers and young adults, the Gazette inquired about its potential positive or negative effects on students and our student body at Grace.
In fact, a student at Grace cites: “Social media tends to falter my satisfaction daily. I don’t like to admit it, but when I watch other people live their seemingly perfect lives, I look at my own life, and I don’t like what I see. I understand that social media isn’t the truth, but it’s hard to convince myself of that because it’s everywhere.”
Media Provided by Pew Research Center
While social media has positive effects and implications, teenagers continue to note the rapid increase in its harmful effects and adverse impact on us, whether we recognize it or not. The unfortunate reality of social media is that it allows us to compare ourselves to others, focusing on our own imperfections rather than our positive qualities.
Jack Godbey, columnist for the Advocate-Messenger, asserts that what we forget about sometimes is that “while we are busy looking at our neighbors and wishing we had what they had, someone is looking at us wishing they had what we had” (Advocate-Messenger).
Blake H. ‘27, the author, is a staff writer for The Grace Gazette.